Institute for Public Health

Emerging Infections Program

The Emerging Infections Programs (EIPs) is a population-based network of
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) working collaboratively
with state health departments, public health laboratories, clinical
laboratories, infection control practitioners, healthcare providers,
academic institutions, and other federal agencies to assess the public
health impact of emerging infections, monitor infections of public health
relevance, and determine the effectiveness of prevention and control
programs. The EIP network is a national resource for surveillance,
prevention, and control of emerging infectious diseases. EIP activities go
beyond the routine functions of health departments in ways that allow
important public health questions to be answered:

Addressing the most important issues in infectious diseases and
selecting projects that the EIP network is particularly suited to
investigate

Maintaining sufficient flexibility for emergency response and
addressing new problems as they arise

Developing, evaluating, and ultimately transferring what is learned
to public health agencies

Incorporating training as a key function of EIP activities

Assigning high priority to projects that lead directly to the
prevention of disease

The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) and the University of New
Mexico Health Sciences Center’s Institute for Public Health collaborate to
form the New Mexico Emerging Infections Program (NMEIP). NMEIP consists of
three core surveillance projects.

1) New Mexico Active Bacterial Core surveillance (ABCs)
The ABCs program collects surveillance data on five invasive bacterial
pathogens: Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Neisseria
meningitidis, group A Streptococcus (GAS) and group B Streptococcus (GBS).
The purpose of the ABCs program is 1) To determine the incidence and
epidemiologic characteristics of invasive disease due to Haemophilus
influenzae, Neisseria meningitidis, group A streptococcus, group B
streptococcus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in several large populations; 2) To determine
molecular epidemiologic patterns and microbiologic characteristics of public
health relevance for isolates causing the above invasive infections, such as
the proportion of pneumococcal isolates that are drug-resistant among all
invasive strains; and 3) To provide an infrastructure for additional special
studies, including those aimed at identifying risk factors for disease and
evaluating prevention policies.

2) Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet)
FoodNet is a collaborative project among the CDC, ten EIP sites, the Food
Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) and the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
FoodNet is the principal sentinel network producing accurate national
estimates of the burden and sources of specific foodborne diseases in the
United States. Enhanced surveillance and investigation are integral parts of
developing and evaluating new prevention and control strategies designed to
improve food safety and health and decrease the number of cases of foodborne
diseases that occur in the United States each year. FoodNet collects
surveillance data on nine enteric pathogens: Salmonella, Yersinia, Shiga
toxin producing E. coli, Vibrio, Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, Shigella,
Cyclospora and Listeria, and one syndrome, hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).

3) Respiratory Diseases Activities (RDA)
RDA focuses primarily on the study of influenza as well as conducting
active, population-based surveillance for laboratory-confirmed
influenza-related hospitalizations in adults and children.

Ongoing NMEIP Research Interests

Unusual Antibiotic Resistance in Enteric Pathogens in a variety
of meats.